Ubuntu

is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software, using its own desktop environment. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of ubuntu (“humanity towards others”) or another translation would be: “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity”.
As of 2012, according to online surveys, Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distribution on desktop/laptop personal computers and most Ubuntu coverage focuses on its use in that market. However, it is also popular on servers and for cloud computing.[citation needed]
Development of Ubuntu is led by Canonical, Ltd , a UK-based company owned by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth. Canonical generates revenue through the sale of technical support and services related to Ubuntu, and since version 12.10, by displaying optional advertisements in the Dash, a search component of Unity in desktop Ubuntu. According to Canonical, the Ubuntu project is committed to the principles of free software development; people are encouraged to use free software, improve it, and distribute it.
History and development process
Ubuntu is a fork of the Debian project’s codebase. The original aim of the Ubuntu developers was to create an easy-to-use Linux desktop with new releases scheduled on a predictable six-month basis, resulting in a frequently updated system.
Ubuntu’s first release was on 20 October 2004. Since then, Canonical has released new versions of Ubuntu every six months with commitment to support each release for eighteen months by providing security fixes, patches to critical bugs and minor updates to programs. Canonical decided that every fourth release, issued on a two-year basis, would receive long-term support (LTS).LTS releases were traditionally supported for three years on the desktop and five years on the server.However with the release of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, desktop support for LTS releases was extended to five years (for example, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is scheduled to be supported until April 2017). Support was extended to better accommodate business and corporate IT users of Ubuntu who operate on longer release cycles and are more conscious of the costs associated with frequent software upgrades.LTS releases get point releases to ensure that they work on newer hardware. The LTS releases can get LTS release upgrades with the first point versions. The 12.04 LTS release for instance gets the release upgrade with the 12.04.1-point release.
Ubuntu packages are based on packages from Debian’s unstable branch: both distributions use Debian’s deb package format and package management tools (APT and Ubuntu Software Center). Debian and Ubuntu packages are not necessarily binary compatible with each other, however, and sometimes .deb packages may need to be rebuilt from source to be used in Ubuntu.Many Ubuntu developers are also maintainers of key packages within Debian. Ubuntu cooperates with Debian by pushing changes back to Debian, although there has been criticism that this does not happen often enough. In the past, Ian Murdock, the founder of Debian, has expressed concern about Ubuntu packages potentially diverging too far from Debian to remain compatible. Before release, packages are imported from Debian Unstable continuously and merged with Ubuntu-specific modifications. A month before release, imports are frozen, and packagers then work to ensure that the frozen features interoperate well together.
Ubuntu is currently funded by Canonical Ltd. On 8 July 2005, Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Ltd. announced the creation of the Ubuntu Foundation and provided an initial funding of US$10 million. The purpose of the foundation is to ensure the support and development for all future versions of Ubuntu. Mark Shuttleworth describes the foundation as an “emergency fund” (in case Canonical’s involvement ends).
On 12 March 2009, Ubuntu announced developer support for 3rd party cloud management platforms, such as for those used at Amazon EC2.
The latest release is Ubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal), released on 18 October 2012.
Mark Shuttleworth announced on 31 October 2011 that Ubuntu’s support for smartphones, tablets, TVs and smart screens is scheduled to be added by Ubuntu 14.04.[29] On 9 January 2012, Canonical announced Ubuntu TV at the Consumer Electronics Show.
[edit]Features
Ubuntu is composed of many software packages, the majority of which are distributed under a free software license. The main license used is the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) which, along with the GNU Lesser General Public License (GNU LGPL), explicitly declares that users are free to run, copy, distribute, study, change, develop and improve the software. On the other hand, there is also proprietary software available that can run on Ubuntu.
The Ubiquity installer allows Ubuntu to be installed to the hard disk from within the Live CD environment, without the need for restarting the computer prior to installation. Beginning with 5.04, UTF-8 became the default character encoding,[35] which allows for support of a variety of non-Roman scripts.
As a security feature, the sudo tool is used to assign temporary privileges for performing administrative tasks, allowing the root account to remain locked, and preventing inexperienced users from inadvertently making catastrophic system changes or opening security holes.[36] PolicyKit is also being widely implemented into the desktop to further harden the system through the principle of least privilege.
Ubuntu Desktop includes a graphical desktop environment. In versions prior to 11.04 the default GUI was GNOME Panel but it was dropped in favor of Unity, a graphical interface Canonical first developed for the Ubuntu Netbook Edition.
Ubuntu comes installed with a wide range of software that includes LibreOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, Empathy, Transmission, and several lightweight games (such as Sudoku and chess). Additional software that is not installed by default (including software that used to be in the default installation such as Evolution, GIMP, Pidgin, and Synaptic) can be downloaded and installed using the Ubuntu Software Center or other apt-based package management tools. Programs in the Software Center are mostly free, but there are also priced products, including applications and magazines.
Ubuntu can close its own network ports using its own firewalls software. End-users can install Gufw (GUI for Uncomplicated Firewall) and keep it enabled. GNOME (the former default desktop) offers support for more than 46 languages. Ubuntu can also run many programs designed for Microsoft Windows (such as Microsoft Office), through Wine or using a Virtual Machine (such asVMware Workstation or VirtualBox).
Ubuntu compiles their packages using gcc features such as PIE and Buffer overflow protection to harden their software. These extra features greatly increase security at the performance expense of 1% in 32 bit and 0.01% in 64 bit.
[edit]System requirements
The system requirements vary among Ubuntu products. For the main Ubuntu desktop product, the official Ubuntu Documentation recommends a 1 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 gigabyte of RAM and 5 gigabytes of hard drive space, or better. For less powerful computers, there are other Ubuntu distributions such as Lubuntu and Xubuntu.

allright friend thats all that can i shared you, i hopes that can usefull for you.